TeenTix Blog Music

The Vera Project has become a household name in Seattle since their founding in 2001. They hold shows for all ages with a strong value on no drugs or alcohol within the building, while creating a fun space for teens and adults alike. Many have seen shows, performances, and concerts at The Vera Project, but not many know of the significance it has on the local Seattle artists it partners with. From holding programs, to booking new artists their first shows, it is clear The Vera Project cares about its Seattle musicians and the music community it cultivates. One of these up and coming musicians is the young, dedicated, and inspired Hunter Grier. A fresh high school graduate, Grier, 19, has already released over twelve collections of songs and tells us he has more in the works.

Grier is a DIY artist. When I asked him what that means, he told me “DIY [do it yourself] culture is what the name implies. It’s doing it by yourself, being able to like take projects into your own hands.”

Join Seattle Women's Chorus for a complimentary evening of daring rock 'n' roll as they celebrate trailblazing female singer-songwriters!

You and up to three other folks are invited to see this performance for FREE with your TeenTix Pass on April 28th at 4:00 PM. All you've gotta do is sign up below with the requested information to claim tickets to this event! Visit this link to directly fill out the form, or scroll down this page to enter your info.

The Vera Project is an organization steeped in independent spirit. With roots in the D.I.Y. movement, the entire space hums with a deep reverence for creativity and individuality, and possesses a kind of unapologetic grittiness that’s rare in most mainstream venues. It feels like the grown-up evolution of a punk house—a place carved out by artists with the needs of artists in mind. One artist at the forefront of this carving is Jason Clackley, programs director for The Vera Project and long-time fixture in the Seattle music scene. Sitting before a backdrop of locally-illustrated zine covers, show flyers, and band posters, Clackley speaks animatedly about his youth, his experience with the local arts culture, and his evolution as an artist. His simply-stated personal history feels like a perfect extension of The Vera Project mission.

“I bought a guitar, and I started making music. I took a few lessons and started playing shows, and then I started doing my own shows, and I moved on from there.”

Our generous friends at Pacific MusicWorks are offering you and up to three others the opportunity to see their upcoming concert, International Woman of Mystery, this Sunday, April 14th. Both performances are eligible for this deal!

Simply fill out the form below to get $5 tickets for you and three friends or family members (a deal not honored at the door).

Seattle’s own Moisture Festival labels itself a vaudeville variety show. But what exactly does that entail? In all honesty, even after attending the event myself, there is no easy answer. With dozens upon dozens of acts in the festival as a whole, and an outlandish lineup of comedians, acrobats, clowns, and more, each show in the four-week run is a unique collection. The lineup caters to all audiences: there are family-friendly shows in the evenings and more risqué performances later in the night.

The festival’s home, Hale’s Palladium, is a brightly painted structure on the backside of the modern and hip Hale’s Brewery. At its entrance, we were greeted by a man in a gaudy orange astronaut costume and a nametag labeling him Zee. Zee scanned our tickets with a smartphone app—the last piece of modern technology we would see for the duration of this event—and ushered us inside. The Palladium is a much humbler and informal venue than such a name might suggest, with an exposed wood ceiling studded with lights of all kinds stretching over many rows of chairs facing a low stage. An acrobat’s swing is tied up in the rafters, foreshadowing acts to come.

Join Seattle Men's Chorus for a complimentary evening of sparkle, sequins and song as they celebrate one of the world's most infamous pop icons of all time: Cher!

You and up to four other folks are invited to see this performance for FREE with your TeenTix Pass on March 30. All you've gotta do is sign up below with the requested information to claim your FREE tickets to this event! Visit this link to directly fill out the form, or scroll down this page to enter your info.

Sound Off!, a music competition hosted by MoPOP, showcases the talent of local artists and bands under the age of 21. The event’s atmosphere is enhanced by being hosted in the Skychurch, where the high quality space and materials allow for professional performances by the contributors. This year’s music came from a wide range of genres and exemplified the unique influences of each performer and how they will come to change the music scene in the following years.

The Finals consisted of three bands and one individual artist who advanced from the semi-finals held earlier in February. Of the talent presented in the Finals, each had a distinctive style and sound that drew upon and combined various different genres. The musical ability of each group was atypical of what is expected in such young artists, and the fact that the entirety of the material performed was original, was even more astonishing.

The Catholic Mass is generally structured around the reading and interpretation of a passage from the Bible. At many of the churches I’ve attended, there’s a service after the Sunday Mass for the kids, where they lead you into a classroom and break down the scripture, as well as teach you the general tenants of Catholicism.

It was in these Sunday school settings that I was first presented with an interpretation of the Virgin Mary. She was said to be a feminine ideal, a figure of compassion and mercy. A Jewish girl selected to be Jesus’ mother due to her openness to God’s will, the Virgin Mary is often held up as a symbol of purity and goodness in humanity, as she was born into an ordinary family and lived an ordinary life up to her “choosing.”

Every year, MoPOP hosts Seattle's premier 21-and-under music showcase and competition called Sound Off! This local showcase supports the local music scene by giving artists of all backgrounds the opportunity to show off their original music on a large platform, connect with peers and industry professionals, and take the next step in their music careers.

This year, TeenTix Members can enter to win a pair of two tickets to one of the three semifinals! Just fill out this form to enter, and see the lineup here! We'll announce the winners of the raffle on February 1, 2019.

Many families have a multitude of traditions during the holiday season: some bake cookies, go caroling, volunteer at charity, or go to church. But one tradition for many families is attending A Festival of Lessons & Carols, a concert performed by the Northwest Boychoir and Vocalpoint! Seattle. As divisions of Northwest Choirs, both groups aim to instill a passion for music and the arts in children and teens from the Pacific Northwest. These talented young men and women, between the ages of six and eighteen, perform alongside the Seattle Symphony in a classic Christmas service every year. This show is based on traditional Anglican worship services often held on Christmas Eve, and is a tradition that, this year, I participated in. The 90 minutes of readings, performances of traditional and modern Christmas carols, and heartwarming sing-alongs of classic Christmas favorites proved to be a jolly experience that exemplified the Christmas spirit.

The concert started with a luminous performance of “I Saw Three Ships,” which was followed by nine Bible readings, the titular lessons, and a varied and unique selection of carols. The ethereal voices of the Boychoir mixed well with the lower sounds of both male and female sections of Vocalpoint! Seattle, with an evident effort to enliven classic Christmas songs like “Silent Night” and “Hark The Herald.” Through new rhythms and consonant harmonies, these songs illustrated the diverse talents of the choir. Although some song choices were much more obscure than others, the songs included more modern arrangements and compositions, which helped to avoid the dreaded glaze of apathy which often covers an audience's eyes when faced with unfamiliar tunes. One particularly amusing performance was that of “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” a Gospel song first written in the 1930s and arranged by the choir’s director Joseph Crnko; this song juxtaposed soaring, nearly incandescent melodies with upbeat, contemporary sounds. The female driven sing-alongs were less varied, more traditional carols, but had the same blend of expression, excellent sense of pitch, warm tonal quality, and crisp pronunciation.

Spotify Wrapped screenshots plaster social media as the year comes to end, users’ music tastes consolidated into neat consumable packages. It’s possible I’m just salty that they called me out for listening to 50+ hours of the same artist (love you Y La Bamba), but Spotify, Apple Music, and similar streaming services are changing the way we engage with music—digitizing, isolating, and directing our listening via depersonalized algorithms. Jack Straw Cultural Center’s collaboration with the Bushwick Book Club offers a different way to engage with art: genre-blending musical collaboration, in real time.

The 12 Jack Straw writers for 2018 have been producing and sharing work all year through the Jack Straw Cultural Center in the University District, an organization dedicated to providing writers and musicians with recording experience. For their annual end-of-the-year event, Jack Straw partners with Bushwick Book Club, a collective of musicians that draw their inspiration from literary works, and pairs each writer with a musician whose job it is to create a song inspired by their writer’s work. These 12 songs span a vast range of musical styles and themes, showing the meandering transformation of an idea filtered through a different consciousness and medium.

In the mood for some holiday cheer? Our friends at Seattle Men's Chorus are offering THREE HUNDRED complimentary tickets to TeenTix Members for their concert, Jingle All The Way, on December 20th!

All you've gotta do is sign up below with the requested information to claim your FREE tickets to this event. Don't want to fill it out on our blog? Visit this link to directly fill out the form.

There is a reason teens don’t review grown up music, it makes us sleepy.

The church-like Fremont Abbey was beautiful on Friday, October 12, with its blue and green lighting and soft stained glass windows. Lighting was calming to watch the music. It was peaceful and so quiet.

As the flannel-clad audience slowly trickled into the Fremont Abbey Arts Center, it was immediately obvious what kind of show we were in for.

The concert-goers, mainly white couples over thirty who seem to have forgotten that most of us left being “hipster” in 2015, chatted under pretty string lights that zigzagged under the former church’s high ceilings. A lone pair of house speakers played indie rock, folk, and country music that gave further hints to the overall energy of the show to come.

There’s a stigma against country music. Everyone has the same assumption—a twangy assortment of half-clothed women, guns, and an unusual, unnatural love for one’s truck set over a backdrop of rolling wheat fields and cattle herds. And those assumptions lead to changing the radio station at the first hint of mandolin—something I am guilty of too. And while there is certainly country music that fits that description, there’s a whole other side to the genre that is often ignored, set to sunsets over the open plains, a deep sense of family, and, often, a longing for something more. The evening’s acoustic set, headlined by Radney Foster, captured the longing of a quirky small town life, and how that deep sense of belonging, while comfortable and familiar, can sometimes be strangling.

The evening began with a set by Luke Martin, a long-haired man who reminded me vaguely of a wood elf. The stage was set as a living room, complete with an armchair and side table with a pitcher of water. He languished on a wooden stool and seemed very comfortable with the guitar in his hands. He sang of longing and of love, set to a masterfully finger-picked acoustic backdrop. His slight lean and big eyes only lended to the aura he cast, of desire and a fierce compassion. After all, as he sang, “it ain’t no use being alone, this I know."

About the DJ: Alden is a high school student at Garfield High School, in the 2017 graduating class. More interested in music than writing in his free time, he’s been writing his own material for a few years now, primarily electronic and orchestral or both. He hopes to study biotechnological genetics or music production/management for a career and to be honestly happy and self-loving for a lifetime.

1. CLPPNG by clipping We all know and love Sub Pop Records, and if you don’t, then you don’t exist. But I can see why you wouldn’t (at least immediately) like clipping. Not only is their funky grammar funky, but it’s also is a fusion of noisehop and straight-up gangster rap. Yet, isn’t this extreme eclecticism enough to make you want to listen to it? I find that the answer is not only yes, but that it’s especially great if you look at the lyrics as more of a poetic observation of poor, hood culture, not just an glamorization of gangsta culture. Look them up, and you'll find you either hate ‘em or love ‘em.

About the DJ: My name is Chloe. I live in Ballard, go to school in Everett (Don't ask, it's complicated.), and spend a lot of time downtown working at Pacific Science Center or playing violin for something or other. As a classical musician in training, I like to go to the symphony, opera, and ballet. I love Seattle and living in a big city.

1. Portlandia Portlandia is a must watch for every proud Northwesterner. Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, the show's creators, do a wonderful job of lovingly making fun of the Northwestern lifestyle. The episodes don’t follow a storyline, so you can start watching at any point, which I enjoy. Once all your friends start watching Portlandia, the real fun begins with making references. With lots of memorable skits that resonate with my friends and I, we have frequent inside jokes based off the show. I can no longer walk into a store without suggesting to “Put a bird on it!” and I couldn’t be happier about it.

At the Sound Off! Semifinals #2 , the entire night built up, transmigrating itself from making one feel like bit of moss on the side of a tree on a warm, breezy spring morning to the hard-rocked, fiery hellfire that the Skychurch was always meant to be. It was fun as all damn. Sound Off! may have just been one of the best, most fun concerts I have ever attended, and, very possibly, one of the best I will ever attend — seriously.

After a late start of more than half an hour, the first act, Manatee Commune, went up to much praise for an act finally starting. Hailing from Bellingham, this electronic artist combines ambience and downtempo, along with some bright, contrapuntal synthesizer action to create a very airy, happy, peaceful, and overall chillaxed feel. Manatee Commune also played both electric guitar and acoustic viola during his live set, which was quite cool.

Sound Off! — the EMP’s annual under-21 battle of the bands competition — didn’t present your stereotypical bands this past Saturday night. The first round of the semifinals gave a little taste of everything.

“Y’all rocking with us?” was the question asked during the first performance of the competition as Tommy Cassidy took the stage. And yes, Tommy Cassidy, we were all rocking with you. The group, composed of the frontman and his band, is a diverse bunch with their incorporation of saxophone and trumpet harmonies into hip hop. If you ever wondered what Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” would sound like with a band, Tommy Cassidy is it.

About the DJ: My name is Layne, and I am an inhabitant of West Seattle by week and downtown by weekend. I live a hectic life full of unique adventures and wonderful experiences. I am a city girl so I am used to the hustling, bustling, ever-changing world that is life in general. Though I am usually on the move, there are some things that have stuck with me. I must say, I am very happy that they haven't even been whisked away by the swiftness of the crowds around me. Here are just a few of the little treasures that I hold very dear in the playlist of my life.

1. Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs by Marty Robbins OK, typically I am not a country fan as I can't really take the boo-hooing of unrequited love. But Marty Robbins has revolutionized the way I look at it with his great story-telling prowess mixed with his “lone ranger” voice. I am simply entranced by Robbins and his stories. Only he can tell a story in a 4-minute song better than most people can in a whole novel.